The long-term objective of this K0I proposal is to develop the applicant's research capabilities in the area of substance use and Indigenous youth populations (e.g., American Indian youth, Native Hawaiian youth), ultimately allowing him to successfully develop and conduct federally-funded drug and alcohol research with these populations. Specifically, this application proposes a structured program of mentoring, training, coursework, and supervised research to increase the applicant's capacity to conduct large-scale, high-quality quantitative and qualitative research. This KOI proposal will accomplish its objectives through the following specific aims: AIM 1 is to provide a structured program of: (a) Mentoring by a team of nationally recognized, federally funded researchers, (b) Coursework in the areas of theory, methodology, and research design, and (c) Training visits to selected substance abuse research centers across the country to learn about issues related to theory, methodology, research design, project management and implementation, and grant writing. AIM 2 is to provide the applicant with a supervised research experience focused on examining the ecological factors that contribute to the drug and alcohol use of Native Hawaiian adolescents. A modified replication of the methodology used in American Indian Youth Pilot Project of the Southwest Interdisciplinary Research Consortium (funded by NIDA/Nffl, R24 DAI 3937-01) will be used to investigate the ecological factors related to Native Hawaiian youths' substance use. The methodology for this project consists of five interrelated stages: (a) Research and coursework, (b) assessing environmental demands, (c) establishing social validity, (d) response enumeration, and (e) evaluation of social competence. AIM 3 is to design an R21 or R01 application (to be submitted at the end of this award) to develop and pilot test a culturally grounded drug prevention curriculum focused on Native Hawaiian adolescents in the school setting. The long term research goal is to analyze the curriculum in conjunction with the American Indian youth drug prevention curriculum being developed through the Southwest Interdisciplinary Research Consortium, in order to examine "pan- Native" drug prevention principles (i.e., the shared core of norms related to drug and alcohol use between Native Hawaiian and American Indian adolescents) as well as the Native-specific substance abuse prevention principles. [unreadable] [unreadable] [unreadable]